


Please Stay

by SweetBrew



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Mild Gore, Mostly Canon Compliant, Mutual Pining, Near Death Experiences, The Stolen Century, background tres horny boys, pre-getting together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-03-08 07:13:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18889735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetBrew/pseuds/SweetBrew
Summary: "Stay?"  "... why?"  "I just - I just don't want to be alone."A one shot for my good friendKon twitter!  They draw a lot of great TAZ art and write some fics too so go check them out!





	Please Stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StaticWitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StaticWitch/gifts).



Lup doesn’t scare easily. Never has, never will. Not even the Hunger in it’s all-consuming, terrible glory could make her tremble. Barry supposes that an endless supply of lives could do that to a person. Why be afraid to die if at the end of the cycle, the whole thing resets? Good as new. They all get to blow the dust off their lives and try again. Although, death, of course, hurts... and they’ve all died in some pretty terrible ways. 

It didn’t matter what happened as long as just one of them lived to steer the Starblaster to the next cycle. But _gods_ Barry wishes he could be so sure of himself. It just seems to _bounce_ off her like nothing, while Barry can hardly move through an afternoon without overanalyzing every second before they can even hit him. Think ahead, prepare, experiment, and try to come to some kind of conclusion, an answer. On the cycles that they capture the light early, he holes up in his lab and desperately combs for a cure, an ending to this so they can all move on to… something else. 

He’s had no luck. 

He tries not to get so wrapped up in the crushing anxiety of what that means, considering that he’s the science officer and it’s his job to find the answers. This cycle could be different, any of them can be. He’ll work harder, take a page from Lup’s playbook and give it everything, even more than he has to offer. 

It’s all hands on deck as always, they search for the light together, they fight together, but when it comes to researching the light itself, he’s the most experienced, having come to this team with the skillset meant to analyze and make sense of what they would encounter beyond their world. It's on him.

Lup just runs with it. She has brought more to the table than Barry could imagine. She’s absolutely lethal and above all? _Smart!_ She’s made passing comments over his shoulder that pointed him to a solution he should have realized from the beginning, it’s like everything she touches just… _glows._ He has to keep up, so as they wade through the swamp on this semi-aquatic world, he follows her lead through the dripping trees. Fanned out all around them is their team, silently approaching. The canopy coverage was too dense to approach from above and the intel was scarce this cycle. There’s no telling how The Light has manipulated and altered this world. They’ve barely been here a week.

The trees and vines break away slowly, opening into wooden cave of sorts, foliage intertwining into solid panels, the branches overhead twisted and growing over each other so tightly that it blocks out all natural light. It's still almost blinding in here, the walls insulating the glow of The Light, encased in a constantly growing spiral of roots. The sound of wood sliding against wood all around him makes his skin crawl, as do the disturbing humanoid forms poking out of the panels of wood, assimilated into the greater, writhing mass. It’s unnerving, but Lup doesn’t slow down so neither does he. Willing some of her confidence into his step, he follows her onto dry land, boots soaked through with all kinds of muck as they reassess the situation, silently. There’s no telling how these plants will react, but a brief look around shows the rest of the team, Magnus and Taako, arrived safely as well. Magnus flashes a wide smile and an enthusiastic thumbs up as Taako wanders closer to The Light with his sister. Quietly, Barry observes the double-helix spinning around the light so tightly it will be a hassle to extract what they came for.

Lup waves him closer, whispering almost too softly to catch over the rustling of wood and leaves, “Whatcha think, Barry Blue? Got a plan?”

He steps into the overwhelming glow with his team, Magnus a few steps behind on lookout. Rummaging through his back, he pulls out a container, specially designed to hold The Light without them having the directly touch it, “These plants are unusually reactive, they may become aggressive once I remove it, so be ready to run for it.” Prepping the container, he slowly approaches the spiral, he could wedge between the gaps and pluck it out between the spinning branches, but that will almost definitely spark a reaction, he’d need to be fast.

This probably isn’t going to end well, “Get ready.” He feels Lup and Taako step away from him, wands drawn for whatever comes at them. Meticulously, he lines his wand with the spiralling vessel and waits. All distraction slips away as the light flickers with every revolution, calculating his moment to _strike._

The repercussions are immediate. The Light of Creation slips out and the double helix stutters and loses form instantaneously. Disturbance ripples through the entire room, the wood panels shuttering and bursting inward, branches and roots shooting in from all directions. The floor beneath their feet rolls and bulges as limbs rise up like mangled arms, reaching for them as Barry locks away the light and spins on his heels.

Magnus is already hacking through an exit, Taako and Lup on either side burning away the offending branches, which quickly proves to be a double edged sword as smoke fills the room, causing them to choke on their limited air. The entrance from which they came is quickly growing over to prevent their escape with The Light. There’s no time to think. He aims straight up and blasts a hole straight through the canopy, burning through his spell slots with the sheer power needed and he screams, “GO!” 

They stare at him with wild eyes as the force knocks them back somewhat, but just as quickly as the hole was formed, it’s being laced over again, shrinking by the second. A shadow passes over the hole and a rope snakes down from the Starblaster, there’s no talking, only shouting as they clamor over gnarly roots towards it.

First goes Taako, then Magnus, then Lup. Barry can’t move.

His feet are cemented to the spot. He wretches at branches wrapping around his feet and up his legs twisting painfully as they search blindly for The Light. He looks over his shoulder at the sound of cracking wood to see the double helix has unwound itself, reaching out, wide and open to reclaim The Light. He tears harder, chest pounding, but he’s out of spells and his fingers are bloody on the bark.

“BARRY!” Lup shouts, looking down at him from the rope, she slips down the rope further, like she’s going to let go, and his heart ends up in his throat as he shouts, “NO! Get out!” Before she can let go, he throws The Light of Creation up as hard as he can. She catches it, gawking down at him as the branches closer around him like vertical jaws. Growing thicker, weaving tighter, and he smiles up at her, holding a hand up, “I’ll see you in the next one!” 

She screams out to him, but she keeps going and he doesn’t tear his eyes off her, watching to see if she makes it through. She has to make it through. She has to make this worth it, she has to survive. The branches close around him, blocking out his sight, and he can’t see her anymore, can’t hear anything anymore, and it gets tighter, and tighter, and tighter, and like all that anxiety it gets too much. Then it’s over. So quickly, and it hurt. Then nothing. Under all the pain, he wonders if she made it.

🌳🌳🌳

It never gets old. The Light of Creation works through him as it has dozens of times before and he’s barely conscious of it. Until he is. And he’s looking around, again, on the deck of the Starblaster. They made it! He grins, “Did you make it?” He shouts, met with cheers and embraces. Magnus laughs, “Thanks to you, buddy! By the skin off our asses.” He laughs with him, “Well, did we learn anything?”

“That you’re a complete nimrod,” Behind Magnus’s broad shoulders stands Lup with her arms crossed, glaring at Barry like she’s held a grudge over the past year. He honestly wouldn’t put it past her. “Lup!” He declares, smile turning shaky, “You made it through?”

_“Yeah_ I made it through.” She smiles, but her voice drips with anger. She’s never this coy about her fury, it’s almost like she isn’t sure if she’s mad, or, or something else. He takes it as a direction to _tread carefully._

“Good. I, I didn’t get to really see before, well, you know.” He shrugs awkwardly, “I missed you guys.” Davenport calls to them all, “Yes, you missed quite a lot Barry, we did learn from The Light this time around, but not as much as we could have if you had made it through with the rest of us, so please try not to die so quickly this time around.” Davenport smiles at him, but the seriousness in his eyes makes Barry sober his expression and nod, “Yes sir.” After so long, there hasn’t been much of a need for such formality between them all, but Barry knows an order when he hears one.

Merle pats him on the back, calling on Davenport to _lay off, why don’tcha!_ And they disperse to their usual spots, waiting for The Light to appear and for the hunt to begin anew. Maybe they can get three for three. He can make himself more of use to his friends. Despite Lup’s unusual coldness, he can’t help but feel _proud_ of himself for his sacrifice. Proof he really can do something for his friends when he isn’t holed away staring at The Light, puzzling over an answer he should be able to parse out. Lup doesn’t seek him out, not that she usually does, but the way she turns her back on him feels intentional, but there’s no time to puzzle over _that_ troubling behavior right now.

He’s preparing his lab when the announcement comes over The Starblaster’s internal PA system. _“Target spotted! Crew to stations, locking onto The Light’s location now.”_ Barry scrambles, rushing to the helm to help Davenport locate The Light. Davenport is a brilliant navigator, but there are some complexities around The Light of Creation that Barry has discovered to help isolate it among the new and diverse signals that each planet has. It’s all so different every time that it takes their systems a moment to adjust to their new location. This planet appears to be mostly ocean, the depths deep pink towards the shallows and ripening to an intense red where the underwater elevation drops below their sensors’ ability to penetrate.

It’s just their luck that The Light appears to have disappeared into one of these depths. At least it probably won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

They report back to the team, explaining the situation as their sensors are still gathering as much data as they can before they venture into the water. The aquatic nature of the planet poses unique challenges, as he talks, explaining what they’ve already found, he’s already running through alterations to their suits, and spells to extend their stay under the water. Formulating backup plans, and how each of their skills will be tested here, it’s daunting and exciting and for a moment he forgets that Lup is apparently upset with him. He’s so swept up in the familiar rhythm of work, afterall, he can’t study The Light if they have yet to find it. The sooner, the better!

It takes a new days and a few brief recons for the team to feel comfortable enough to dive in feet first. Barry himself jumped down with portable sensors, getting the chance to take in their new surroundings with his own eyes. The sea life is diverse and unlike anything he’s ever seen, he sees almost no similarities between the creatures here and the ones of their homeworld. Except, of course, that they swim in water. Water tinged red instead of blue, which is unsettling in a deep part of Barry’s brain, even after all these years, there are still some things about these different worlds that are hard to take in. No matter how detached they have become from their home after so many cycles, over thirty now, there are still some gut reactions that are hard to overcome. He stopped being innately afraid of these new worlds though, his training as a scientist to see with clear, unbiased eyes has become easier.

There doesn’t seem to be any forms of higher intelligence on this world, however. Not much that has come out to say hello that is. Some test dives have extended the reach of their map, widening their horizon and understanding of their path to The Light enough to warrant a true attempt at retrieval. Lucretia pours over his pictures of the sea life and terrain, Taako takes stock of the local fish, working them into his cooking. With no obvious threats coming out to challenge them, there’s a relaxed atmosphere over the whole crew. Barry fears that perhaps he is holding all the tension for them. Not that he minds, if he had to choose, he’d be the only anxious one out of them all if it freed them up to be their best selves. But the way Lup has looked at him this past week instills a deep, raw pit of anxiety unlike mortal fear. _Why won’t she talk to me?_ He wonders. Not that she’s walked away from him, but she has barely said more than a few words past what is strictly needed for their mission. No banter, no talking, just. Work.

She must be mad at him for what he did last cycle. But why? Why is she mad at him? Isn't it what she would have done? No, she would have figured out a way to save them both, no problem, so is it because he didn’t see a solution that she did? Did he hurt her feelings? She never hurts easy and she meets the hurt head on and lets you _know_ the moment the wound is inflicted that you fucked up. So what is this cold shoulder? This is not the fiery Lup that Barry knows, the look in her eyes is distant when she meets his and she steps away first every time. _What did I do?_ What didn’t Barry do? He doesn’t know. It haunts him when he isn’t distracted. He grinds his teeth against it. After they find The Light, they’ll talk. He’ll cross the distance between them and get to the root of this. For now the mission takes priority. It has to, they have a job to do. He isn’t hiding from it, of course he isn’t hiding from it! He’s brave, he likes to think that he’s gotten braver, he’ll show Lup that too. Maybe that will help.

He volunteers for the retrieval team. Second behind Magnus. He earns a few eyebrows raised at his eagerness, but he just smiles and says he’s really looking forward to seeing the effects The Light has had on this world. It’ll be educational. They suit up, diving suits enhanced with magic, durable and breathable so they can spend hours underwater with floatation devices to float them up to the top when the time comes, or they’re low on oxygen. 

The team consists of Magnus, Barry, Lup, Taako, and Merle this time around. Usually they try to avoid putting so much of the team at risk like this, but the unknown of the deep coupled with their biological disadvantages requires them to go in as prepared as possible. The first hundred feet go well, their suits are equipped with lights and the moment pink turns to impenetrable red they flick on automatically. It feels like they’re wading through blood, dropping lower and lower, Barry watches the elevation meter drop steadily. The life all around them hardly notices their intrusion, floating around them and between them easily, their suit comms are alive with chatter, mostly Magnus, Taako and Merle. Lup usually sticks to her brother’s side, but today she floats towards the front, in Barry’s peripheral as he leads them down, following his map.

At over a thousand feet, the pressure is palatable, but the suits hold up to it, protecting them from crushing in on themselves. It’s also completely dark and nearly devoid of life. It’s no longer red down here, it’s black and silent as the grave. Chatter fizzles out as they reach the end of the map, too deep for their sensors to pick anything up.

“Careful now, things get serious from here on out. We have no idea what we’re swimming into down here.” Barry radios over the comms, met with acknowledgement as Magnus swims to his side, ready to take point into the unknown. They descend like this in slow progression, alert on all sides, the lights unable to penetrate more than a dozen or so feet in any direction, making Barry feel as though they are cocooned in a blanket of uncertainty. He’s only nominally versed in the underwater creatures of their world, but if the life here behaves anything like theirs, things will get weird down here.

“Tighten up,” Davenport speaks from the Starblaster, so far above them now it might as well be on another planet, “If the sea is anything like ours, there’s a chance you’ll run into some large apex predators. Things tend to grow big down where no one can get to ‘em, and there doesn’t seem to be much that can hunt them around here.” Taking their captain’s orders, they bundle up, bumping shoulders as they close in on the location of The Light, somehow, Barry had expected it would be like a beacon in the pitch blackness down here, but perhaps it’s too impenetrable even for it to wink at them down here and guide them closer.

They should have found it by now. It’s been two hours, and they’ve hit the bottom of the sea floor, skimming it as they search, but there’s nothing here but flat expanses of sand. By Barry and Davenport’s best calculations, they should be on top of it!

“Seems like a goose chase, ya’ll.” Taako says, his voice chalky over the pressurized comms, “I think imma find a beach and kick back while ya’ll get lost down here, how ‘bout it?” Magnus elbows him, “Come on, Barry says we’re right on it. Maybe it’s in the sand?”

“Oh, so we’re gonna start making sand castles looking for it?” Merle laughs, drifting closer to the bottom with Magnus and Taako, Barry combs over his map again, checking for mistakes, muttering softly for a moment before a familiar shape cuts off the beams of his suit lights, Lup hovering over his shoulder.

Her hair is pulled tightly under the suit, but she smiles at him for what feels like the first time in a year, “Hey, ya got us this far, those idiots will get lost without us.” Barry smiles back, small, unsure, and scared to break the moment as she starts to drift away from him again, towards the bottom, “Yeah, you’re right, my math has to be right, I only looked over it ten times before we touched the water.” She laughs and gods it’s like music, similar to her brothers but so uniquely her. His chest squeezes as he follows her down, Magnus has already set foot on the seafloor, crouched and inspecting the sand, Merle a couple feet away doing the same.

Barry speaks up as he floats down, his left foot touching the spot of sand illuminated on his map as the location of The Light, “Okay, so it’s supposed to be right here-” The floor opens up, the ground shaking, sand rippling and sliding for the first time in what might be milenium as the spot right beneath Barry’s feet opens up and he’s blinded by The Light, sitting on the tongue of something big and _toothy._ The brightness stuns him, paralyzing him momentarily as his comms come to life with startled shouting and upset, and over it all, he hears his name screamed half a dozen ways before he snaps out of it.

The teeth are closing in around his chest when he dives down into the mouth of the creature, feeling the upward movement of the whole thing slam him into its tongue, next to The Light. For a moment he lays there, disoriented and he still hears his name being called. The sound of spells colliding on the outer shell of whatever just ate him whole dull and distant as it swims from its position hiding under the sand. Getting his bearings, he scrambles for the container, capturing the light and securing it to his back before he radios in, “I’M ALIVE! I have The Light but uh, I don’t know how to get out!” He stares into the strange, pulsing esophagus of the creature before turning towards the closed jaws. The teeth are sharp and serrated, a wall of bone.

There’s a surprised roar of laughter and washes over the comms, “Holy shit, Barry! You just got eaten, man!” Merle helpfully comments, as if he didn’t already know that he was sitting in its mouth. Magnus chimes in, well meaning but not exactly helpful either, “What if you crawled out through its butt?” Barry makes a face at no one and Lucretia chimes in from the surface, “The creature’s stomach acid would probably dissolve him before he could get to the end of it's digestive tract and the pressure of being shat out could also kill him. There are probably better ways to go out than ‘the guy that got shat out by a sea dragon’, don’t you think, Barry?”

“Affirmative, Lucretia, now how the hell do I get out?” Barry smiles despite his desperate situation, he can hear Taako, Magnus, and Merle laughing hysterically over the comms between attacks. 

Lup speaks up first, “My fire won’t stick down here, but maybe you could blast your way out from the inside? The outer armor is a bitch!” Barry inspects his surroundings, “That could be a good idea, but I’m worried about what this thing’s throat and stomach could have in store for me, maybe I could get it to open its mouth?”

“And risk getting snapped in half, homie? You might as well wait for us to kill it.” Taako says, his magic could be more useful down here than his sister’s fire. Barry toys with his options for a minute, listening to his team fight this thing from the outside and elects to follow his gut.

“Alright, get ready!” Barry grins, this is probably not the best idea, but it could take hours for them to down this creature, and who knows how far the creature will swim away, definitely further out of their collected maps for sure. If he’s going to do something, it has to be _now._

“Aw, shit! Don’t do anything stupid, Barry!” Lup’s tone turns more severe than he’s heard it in a long time, completely void of her usual light nonchalant. He winds up and casts a explosive spell right into the pulsing throat of the creature. Within seconds, the green skin of the sea dragon’s throat turns black and starts to bleed yellow, the force of the blast knocking him into the back of the creatures teeth hard enough to knock his own teeth together. The noise, oh gods _the noise_ this thing makes. He slaps his hands over the sides of his helmet uselessly, the pink water around him turns orange swirling around him.

There’s a rush of confusion streaming from the comms link, before the jaws behind him open and he's pushed out with a rush of water as the creature coughs. He flips in the water, heels over head too fast for him to figure out which way is up once he stops, if he even does stop. All he knows is that suddenly he’s being grabbed under his arms and pulls up, too fast to be swimming. He blinks through the disorientation to see Lup has his arm, she must have tapped both of their floatation devices, because they’re rapidly approaching the surface. He barely gets to see her profile, stricken and tight before their heads burst through the surface tension and the Starblaster is just to their right.

Around them Magnus, Merle and Taako pop up moments later, but Lup is tugging him towards the ship before he can get his bearings, “Hey, Lup! Lup, I’m fine. You don’t have to help me to the boat! The suit does all the work for me!” He laughs, but Lup isn’t laughing, and he goes quiet as she finally lets go of her vice grip on his arm to climb onto the ship. She only looks down once to see if he’s following before she throws herself over the railing. Davenport and Lucretia are ready for them, clapping and grinning, Davenport is commending him for his quick thinking and Lucretia wants to know what it looked like inside the creature’s mouth for her notes.

They overwhelm his attention for a moment, and behind them he sees Lup strip off her suit and disappear into the living quarters of the ship without so much as a look over her shoulder as their friends climb on behind him.

They don’t see her for the rest of the night, not when Barry is securing The Light in his lab and not at dinner either. Taako says she isn’t feeling too hot, the fight was draining for all of them, but there’s something he's not saying. The way all their eyes linger on him, everyone pats his back at dinner, telling him that now that they have The Light, they’ll have a whole year to research it with him. The tone is off, but he supposes that it’s usually Magnus, or Taako, or even _Lup_ that dies during a cycle. The science officer has only recently started to go out into the field, with obviously mixed success, of course.

The air of the crew is jovial and he soaks it in as well as the praise, he hardly got to see the thing that snapped him up, so hearing his friends describe the debacle from their perspective was as horrifying as it was entertaining. The way the jaws rose up from the sand and how for a moment, with all the sand and light thrown up around him, they weren’t sure if he’d be snapped in two or swallowed whole. Those several seconds of silence on his end that they assumed the worst, and the shock that he was really still alive in there playing out all over again as Magnus gesticulates and mimes the battle.

Dinner winds later than usual, with all the fanfare of such an eventful reclamation of The Light, and by the time Barry gets a chance to seek Lup out, almost everyone is headed off to bed. He wonders if he should even bother her this late, she could be sleeping. A knock couldn’t hurt, he just wants to check on her, hopefully she isn’t still, _something_ at him. He misses her smile. He stands in front of the door for a few minutes, overthinking it ten times over, weighing nothing as if it’s holding the world in balance before the door swings open without him even getting to decide if he wanted to knock or not.

Lup’s standing there, hair loose around her shoulders, wrapped in red pajamas and slippers. Her eyes are alert, no hints of sleep there, though her shoulders are set strangely as she leans against the door, “I could hear you thinking from my desk. Thought I’d put you out of your misery.” She smiles, but it isn’t the same. It’s beautiful, but it doesn’t shine with her characteristic brilliance. Maybe she is tired, this was a mistake.

“I just wanted to check on you. You missed dinner.” _You haven’t been the same since last cycle. You’re looking at me different._ He smiles, or tries to, but it falls short as she sighs heavily, rubbing her eyes with one hand, “Yeah. I did.” Flat, like Barry’s heart as he realizes he shouldn’t have come.

“I’ll leave you alone, you seem tired. Sorry.” He ducks his head, stepping away from her, eyes down at his feet as he makes a move to rush to his own room, holding down the hurt.

“Wait.” Her urgent tone startles Barry, who looks up, almost expecting an outside threat, but it’s just them in the hallway. Lup leans against the door like it’s holding her up, “I,” She presses her lips together, flat and mute as she stares at Barry like he’s a problem and an answer all at once. Barry barely breathes until she breathes out, “Stay.” It’s so soft, he almost doesn’t hear it.

“... why?” He breathes back, why would she want him to stay? The look in her eyes becomes complicated for a moment and his heart rattles in his chest as she makes some sort of decision because her face becomes resolute, soft, and tired all at once.

“I just-” She swallows, “I just don’t want to be alone.” Her eyes clear and dampen as she blinks at him. He stands mute for a second before nodding, “Sure, of course.” He keeps his voice low, shuffling towards her as she steps back into her room and lets him in. It’s not the first time he’s been here, but never like this. She’s never looked at him like this and asked him to do something so simple and so intimate at the same time. She’s never reached out like this.

He follows her lead to the bed, waiting for her to sit down and lean against the wall. She looks up and opens her arms for him. He sits down slow, leaning against the wall and lets himself be pulled against her side into a snuggle not exactly uncharacteristic of her, but unusually tender in the way she leans her cheek against the top of his head. “You know, I’m mad at you.” She says, tired of it. He grunts, trying not to move much, “Yeah. I thought so.”

“I need you to stop just… _throwing_ yourself into danger like that.” Her fingers trace through the soft hair at his temple, “It fucking sucked watching you die, Barry Blue, and I thought I was watching it happen all over again and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.” Her tone wobbles for a moment, but he feels her strength underneath, “Stop being an idiot, okay?”

Barry huffs a laugh, parsing out her worry among the soft insult, “You got it, Lup.” She was worried. She was mad and worried and it was for _him._ He smiles against her shoulder, wraps an arm around her back and lets that warm feeling in his chest grow. They won't talk anymore tonight, just sit in each other’s company. Talking would come later, spread out over cycles, but Barry holds onto that night, even in the darkness, even after the cycles are over. Lup never said so, but Barry knows that _stay_ was just another way of saying _I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> I love TAZ and bullied as many of my friends as I could into listening to it.. yet I've never once had the itch to write or read for this beautiful fandom! Thanks for the great challenge my friend! I hope you like it!
> 
> Apologies for some details I got wrong, like Barry knowing how to swim and some ooc characterization, I tried really hard but I haven't listened to Balance in almost a year so I'm rusty!


End file.
